During the week with no major Hollywood movie released in Indonesia, a movie about sharks would definitely be an interesting choice to see. It premiered on a Thursday which was kind of odd, but due to my feeling tired on that day, plus the fact that my wife also had an event she attended till night, we only watched this one yesterday night. Even that was also a bit worrying since after the tickets were bought, I was informed of a meeting which may end till evening. But luckily it finished earlier and I was able to reach the location at 6.30PM while the show was at 7.15PM.
Brief Story Line
Two sisters from US, Lisa (Mandy Moore - A Walk to Remember, Tangled etc) and her younger sister Kate (Claire Holt - The Vampire Diaries & The Originals TV series) were taking a vacation in Mexico. Kate who was much more adventurous was trying to get Lisa off her mind from her relationship with her boyfriend Stuart. So both of them met with two Mexican guys in a club named Louis (Yani Gellman) who seemed to be interested in Lisa, and Benjamin (Santiago Segura). Both of them challenged the ladies to try a dangerous exciting experience of diving in a cage with sharks circling them.
At first Lisa who was not having any deep water diving experience was scared, but due to Kate's persistence and requests, they finally decided to go ahead. With Louis and Benjamin, they went in a boat who was captained by Taylor (Matthew Modine - Full Metal Jacket, Notting Hill etc) with his first mate Javier (Chris J. Johnson). So off they went to the middle of the sea to try this new experience. After Louis and Benjamin did their diving, Lisa and Kate went down. In the beginning, they seemed to be very happy and excited, though they were worried also when a large shark passed through the cage.
Now this is when the story would become totally exciting, since the cable holding the cage was not really reliable and broken. The cage with Lisa and Kate fell 47 meters down to the bottom of the sea. With oxygen running low and some sharks still lurking, both Lisa and Kate have to find the way to be saved or save themselves without damaging their brains if they swam to fast to the surface. Not to mention the communication equipments they had were not working due to the distance was too far. So how would the story ends? You can see it for yourself in this intense survival movie.
End of Brief Story Line
Phew, this movie was intense and suspenseful after the cage fell down. The unique thing of the movie was majority of the scenes were shown under water. We were kept to the edge of our seats during 1 hour plus of the movie. The exciting thing about this kind of movie was because the "villains" (sharks) could suddenly pop out of nowhere, with their large scary teeth giving us the shocks as we never knew when that would happen.
As a movie that was focusing on giving us the fright of the sharks, this film was actually quite good. It did give us quite a scare at times. But, if you are the type of audience who love to use logic when watching movies, then you could probably be annoyed with some of the common sense that did not seem to apply in here. Though if you disregard some of those flaws, you could just enjoy the movie itself. Its special effects were pretty decent. The sound effects and background music were fantastic as they added the element of intensity during the movie. My wife was definitely affected by those effects since she was one of the large audience who screamed during the sharks sudden appearance. Though one thing that I felt was quite lacking in this one, it was not bloody/gore enough for a shark movie.
Compared to another shark movie that we saw last year i.e. The Shallows, this movie was a bit different. It had more sharks, more underwater scenes and more than 1 lead character, while in The Shallows, the shark was only one and only 1 major character played by Blake Lively and focusing a bit on the character development. Both have similarities in term of having female leads, and focused on the survival. However, this one had an ending that may or may not be accepted by general audience, although from my personal opinion, it was surprisingly entertaining. Again I have to remind that some logics must not be applied if you want to really enjoy the movie which is most likely why The Shallows was more successful commercially as well as critically compared to this one as it felt more logical and the character development was something that those critics adored.
So if you are looking solely for entertainment and love the intense suspenseful moments of being underwater for quite some time, and enjoy the nice scenery plus the occasional sharks attacks, then this movie definitely a must-see one. However, if you prefer to be having a more intelligent shark movie, then you would be better of to see The Shallows. Of course another option if you do not mind the old special effects, you could probably enjoy the 1975 JAWS. The choice is yours.
Happy watching!
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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